U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer greets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of a "coalition of the willing" meeting, at 10 Downing Street in London, Oct. 24, 2025. Leon Neal/Getty

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began his third visit to Britain this year with a highly symbolic show of support from one of his country's most vociferous Western partners.

Zelenskyy was greeted on Friday by both rare British autumn sunshine and King Charles III at Windsor Castle, ahead of a summit with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other European leaders from the so-called "coalition of the willing," who are determined to show that dozens of countries stand united behind Ukraine as Russia's devastating full-scale invasion nears the four-year mark.

After the pomp and ceremony of his meeting with Charles, Zelenskyy headed into central London to spend the day meeting with Starmer and other senior European and NATO figures, discussing how to pile more pressure on Vladimir Putin's Russia to end the war.

The objective, as highlighted this week by newly-announced sanctions against Russia from both the Trump administration and the European Union, is to hit Putin where it hurts — in the bank account.

Russia's ability to continue selling oil and gas despite the ever-mounting sanctions aimed at choking off Putin's energy-fueled war economy will be one of the primary focuses of the coalition meeting on Friday.

Moscow has proven adept at maneuvering around the sanctions, thanks to willing global partners and a so-called "shadow fleet" of tankers that still ply the seas.

Partners including Starmer, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof will be there in person to strategize with Zelenskyy, while about 20 other leaders are set to join via video link.

According to a statement posted online by Britain's government, the leaders "are expected to use the meeting to focus the world's attention on how they can further strengthen Ukraine's hand and cripple Russia's ability to continue to wage war."

"The only person involved in this conflict who does not want to stop the war is President Putin, and his depraved strikes on young children in a nursery this week make that crystal clear," Starmer said in the statement. "Time and again we offer Putin the chance to end his needless invasion, to stop the killing and recall his troops, but he repeatedly rejects those proposals and any chance of peace. From the battlefield to the global markets, as Putin continues to commit atrocities in Ukraine we must ratchet up the pressure on Russia and build on President Trump's decisive action."

The leaders will discuss with Zelenskyy how to disincentivize China and India from buying Russian energy at the discounted prices Moscow gives them. The profits from those sales go to help fund Russia's "war machine," as President Trump put it this week.

Another focus will be on how to use Russian assets frozen by authorities in accounts across Europe to help fund Ukraine's defensive efforts. European authorities say there's as much as $250 billion in such Russian assets held within the EU.

And the coalition summit's hosts will make their own specific announcements of additional support on Friday, with Starmer vowing to speed up delivery of more missiles to Ukraine.

Starmer "will announce that a U.K. missile building program has been accelerated to deliver more than 100 extra air defense missiles ahead of schedule to bolster Ukraine's defenses through the depths of winter," according to the statement from the British government.

The additional missiles are part of a wider deal announced in the spring between the U.K. defense industry and Ukraine's government, worth about $2.1 billion, that will see Britain provide "more than 5,000 lightweight-multirole missiles (LMM) to support Ukraine's defense," the U.K. government statement said.

The laser-guided missiles have a relatively short range, up to about five miles, and they are intended to help Ukraine defend its airspace more than for offense.

Zelenskyy has been pushing for months to get both his European and U.S. partners to supply more long-range missiles, too, but President Trump declined to grant him his biggest wish from Washington during his visit there last week: Tomahawk missiles. With a range of about 1,000 miles, the weapons in the hands of Ukrainian forces would easily be capable of reaching Moscow, and beyond.

The Ukrainian leader says such long range Western missiles — and the greenlight to use them to target deeper inside Russia — are vital if his country is to stop the relentless airstrikes that continue to kill civilians on a near daily basis.

With Mr. Trump's push for a ceasefire deal frustrated and going nowhere fast, both Ukraine and Russia continue launching daily attacks. Russia's strikes often hit civilian infrastructure, and they have killed at least six people, including two young children, in the recent days alone, according to Zelenskyy.

Russian authorities say a Ukrainian drone struck an apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow before dawn on Friday, meanwhile, purportedly wounding five people, including one child.

But for the European leaders gathered and calling into London on Friday, the impetus to heap pressure on Putin is growing fast, not only due to his military's daily barrage in Ukraine, but because of Russia's ramped-up probing of NATO defenses.

Lithuania's leader said two Russian fighter jets breached its airspace — NATO airspace — again on Thursday night. NATO scrambled two Spanish fighter jets stationed in the Baltics in response.

President Gitanas Naus?da called it "a blatant breach of international law and territorial integrity of Lithuania. Once again, it confirms the importance of strengthening European air defense readiness."

Russia rejected the accusation, saying its jets conducted "scheduled training flights" over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, but that they "neither deviated from the flight route, nor violated the borders of other countries."

But it was just the latest in a series of unclaimed, but suspected Russian drone and other aircraft incursions into NATO's European airspace.

Starmer was due to hold a joint news conference with Zelenskyy later Friday in London. CBS News' partner network BBC News said Keir was likely to urge his fellow European leaders on Friday to ramp up the provision of long-range weapons to Ukraine, following a successful Ukrainian attack on a chemical plant in Bryansk, Russia, using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, earlier this week.


A woman takes a photo of a residential building damaged during by a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Oct. 22, 2025. Alina Smutko/REUTERS

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